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Map of sniper victim locations, from October 2nd through the snipers' capture on October 24th.
Flash Interactive map of shootings
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Silver Spring YMCA |
Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
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Posted on 11/04/2002 7:42:46 PM PST by Sabertooth
On September 11th, 2002, suspected Sniper John Allen Muhammad walked into the Camden, New Jersey State Motor Vehicles office, to register the now-notorious "blue Caprice" he'd just purchased.
Though the car had not yet converted been into a rolling sniper's nest, what happened in the next several minutes leaves little doubt that Muhammad had something sinister in mind.
The registration transaction began at 8:52 am. At 8:58 am., while Muhammad was still standing at the counter, someone (now believed to be fellow suspect, Lee Malvo) phoned a bomb threat at the Motor Vehicles office on the 1st Anniversary of what we now simply call September 11th, the worst terrorist attack in history. The threat was phoned in to Camden Police one year to the very minute after the collision of the first jetliner into the World Trade Center.
John Muhammad is now known to have expressed support for the terrorists of September 11th. Since this anniversary appears to have been significant to Muhammad and Malvo, it ought to be significant to anyone pondering their motives along the trail of bloodshed on which they were about to embark.
On September 14th, the two shot and wounded their first known victim, a liquor store worker in Silver Spring, Maryland, following the purchase of the blue Caprice.
Then they went to Alabama and Louisiana, where they murdered three people before returning to the beltway area of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC.
On October 2nd, the apparently random murders of the DC Snipers began in earnest, with the greatest number of victims clustered in the area of Silver Spring, Maryland.
We now know that during this time, Malvo and Muhammad were occasionally hiding out at the YMCA at 9800 Hastings Drive, in Silver Spring.
Speculations as to why the snipers chose the DC area have ranged from Al Qaeda diversions, to possible connections with the Al Fuqra-related "Muslims of the Americas" compound in Red House, VA (two hours away), to an elaborate subterfuge to kill Muhammad's ex-wife, who lives about 30 miles away in Clinton Maryland, south of the Beltway.
One problem with the latter scenario is that there is no significance to the snipers' obsession with September 11th, unless they are caught. But if they are to be caught, there is no reason to shoot more than a dozen people before killing her in order to direct attention away from themselves.
So while we can't rule out murdering Muhammad's ex-wife as a possible tangential motive, we need to look elsewhere for the elements that make sense of the September 11th Anniversaries.
An examination of Islamic organizations in Silver Spring reveals a possible clue: the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, at 15000 Good Hope Road. The Ahmadiyya mosque is within ten miles of nine of Muhammad and Malvo's fifteen Beltway area victims (including the Sept. 14th shooting), as well their YMCA hideout in Silver Spring.
The Ahmadiyya sect was founded in the Pakistani Punjab in the late 19th Century. It is a breakaway sect which believes it alone practices true Islam, although it has been declared heretical by mainstream Muslims. It was banned in Pakistan in 1984, and has further distinguished itself in recent years by its willingness to condemn Islamic terror.
In the United States, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community has twice been the target of assassinations by another Pakistani group, the Jamaat al Fuqra. It was Fuqra that recruited John Lindh, the American Taliban, and Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber. Al Fuqra is also believed to be responsible for the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
On August 8, 1983, Dr. Mozaffar Ahmad, leader of the Ahmadiyya sect, was shot to death in his home in Canton Michigan. Hours later, the Ahmadiyya mosque in nearby Detroit was firebombed. Two Fuqra members, William Cain and Calvin Jones, were found burned to death inside the mosque, along with the gun that killed Dr. Ahmad.
On January 30th, 1990, a black Muslim cleric named Rashid Khalifa was stabbed to death in his Tucson masjid. Dr. Khalifa was an imam of the Ahmadiyya Community, and federal records indicate that his assassination was carried out by a cell of al Fuqra.
Interestingly, the credit card to which Malvo and Muhammad hoped to have $10 million deposited for "world wide access" was stolen from an Arizona bus driver on March 25th of this year, while driving from Nogales to Flagstaff. The bus route traveled right through Tucson.
Al Fuqra also has a history in Washington State, where Muhammad and Malvo were living earlier this year. On June 17th, 1984, Hindu and Sikh religious institutions were bombed in Seattle by a member of Fuqra. Authorities also believe Fuqra was responsible for a triple slaying of three Hindus in a suburb of Tacoma, Washington, on August 1, 1984. This was just a little over a year before Pvt. John Muhammad (then, Williams) was stationed at Nearby Ft. Lewis, where he officially converted to Islam.
It was with this so-far unexplained series of coincidences at their backs that John Muhammad and Lee Malvo embarked on their murders on the Anniversary (to the minute) of the September 11th attacks. John Muhammad has expressed support for the terrorists of September 11th. Whatever their motives, the importance to Muhammad and Malvo of that Anniversary should not be overlooked.
That very evening, the Silver Spring chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community hosted a nationally publicized, interfaith dinner and prayer service, condemning the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Three days later, on September 14th, the man we now realize was first Beltway victim of the Snipers, Benny Oberoi, was shot and wounded by a single bullet outside the liquor store where he worked… in Silver Spring, Maryland.
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Post here to the thread if you'd like to be on or off the Sniper Muhammad ping list.
Too many loose facts.
The first shooting now appears to have been in Clinton at a restaurant where they stole the laptop.According to the Ahmadiyya mosque, they're located at 15000 Good Hope Road, Silver Spring, MD 20905.
In any event, they're in the Silver Springs area, and all of the milages I cited are accurate.
I missed this. Got a date and a link?
I feel the urge to purge.
According to the Ahmadiyya mosque, they're located at 15000 Good Hope Road, Silver Spring, MD 20905.
Thanks, we'll see. I'm just noticing coincidences that might amount to nothing.
I recommend prunes.
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